My grandmother once bought me some heather potpourri. Sadly, I was allergic to it. Flowers and I don’t generally get along, so it shouldn’t have been a huge surprise, but…it was heather. I was supposed to love it, not feel like my entire face was on fire.

In any event, as I grew up, I often heard about the flower heather and how it was the national flower of Scotland.

I may not have loved the flower, but I liked feeling special. Being a national flower was pretty cool.

Then I wrote Bella Notte. How could I not work the whole heather-is-the-national-flower-of-Scotland thing into the story?

And a beta reader said, “Um. Seriously? You know that’s not Scotland’s national flower, right?”

So I looked it up.

After forty years of believing heather was Scotland’s national flower, you can imagine my shock when I learned that the national flower is actually thistle.

Thistle!

That’s what Eeyore eats. It’s all thorny and unfriendly and not remotely romantic.

As you read Bella Notte, I hope you’ll laugh with me at some of the characters’ adventures. From the moors of Scotland to the sewers of Paris, there’s not a dull moment as they discover their feelings for each other and some of the lessons God has for them.

***

Patrice nodded. “I keep a map where I mark off the different countries I’ve been to. I want to hit as many as I can before I retire.”

“Retire? You’re not old enough to be thinking about retirement.”

Patrice’s head bobbed. “Oh, sweetheart, you are good for the soul. Modeling’s a girl’s game, though, and I left girlhood behind a while ago. It won’t be much longer before I start to get fewer and fewer calls, before someone tells me I’m not quite right for a particular shoot. I love what I do, but I do it with my eyes open.”

“You’re not like the others. I hope you stick around for a long time to come.”

The model waved her comment away with a delicate hand. “Tell me about Piero. Are the two of you finally on speaking terms?”

Felicity’s skin heated.

One of Patrice’s eyebrows arched. “Do tell.”

“It’s nothing.”

“You have milk-white skin, dear. You couldn’t hide a blush if you tried.”

Felicity reached for the palette that would help her to give Patrice the soft, romantic look that morning’s shoot called for. “He’s not quite like I originally thought.”

The model managed to snort without moving a single facial muscle.

“Hey. It’s not my fault I thought he was a player.”

“Has he taken you out yet?”

“Uh… I guess?”

“You guess?” Patrice rolled her eyes. “What does that even mean?”

“We toured the Paris sewers.”

The model shoved Felicity’s hand away from her face and started laughing. “Oh, dear. The sewers? He must be off his game. Piero’s usually way more romantic than that.”

Felicity waited for Patrice’s laughter to subside before returning to her work. “We also visited an art museum and had lunch in a sculpture garden.”

“That sounds more like the Piero I know.”

“How well do you know him?”

“Officially? We’ve been on two dates, both in public venues where I wanted to be seen, and he didn’t mind being on my arm to help me accomplish that.”

Tightness coiled in Felicity’s belly. “And unofficially?”

***

GIVEAWAY TIME!

To enter, comment below with the name of the most bizarre tourist attraction you’ve ever visited. Share a link, too, if you have one! :-)

Two commenters will be randomly selected to receive an e-book copy of Bella Notte. The winners will be announced in the upcoming Sunday Edition.

Heather Gray loves coffee, God, her family, and laughter – not necessarily in that order! She writes approachable characters who, through the highs and lows of life, find a way to love God, embrace each day, and laugh out loud right along with her. And, yeah, her books almost always have someone who's a coffee addict. Some things just can't be helped.
Despite their different lives and situations, Heather’s characters have something in common. They're all flawed...but loved anyway.

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Welcome to our 5th Birthday Bash, in which we are giving YOU the gifts! Please check out the details on the Giveaway page linked in the site header. Comment often from February 14 to March 16, 2019, for more chances to win one of a dozen prizes, including paperbacks for international winners!

Comments

Hi Heather! Enjoyed your book. Not sure if in my travels I visited many bizarre tourist attractions, since I enjoy visiting parks, gardens, museums, churches and historical sites! Michigan has a Mystery Spot. In Southern Indiana we took our youngest son to a buffalo farm. In Germany I climbed the tallest spire in the world – Ulmer Münster – 768 stairs up and 768 winding stairs down. The Ulm Cathedral is not the largest but it is the tallest. While living in Chicago often went up the Sears Tower , the tallest skyscraper with 110 stories at the time. Elevators make the ascent easier. Best wishes! Interesting topic.

Reading the remarks about thistle are interesting. My German mom had them on her East Prussian farm and called them “burning thistles.” I never understood until my trip to Berlin in 1996. I was in East Berlin at the Topography of Terror, an exhibit about the Stazi. It was across the street from the Stanzi, East Berlin secret police that kept volumes on their citizens, who opposed the government. All of a sudden my calf began to burn. I had brushed against “a burning thistle.” When I told my East Berlin relatives, they loved the plant. During the Cold War, there were few over the counter remedies and lots of products were rationed. Burning Thistle helped with arthritis. The leaves could be made into shampoo. If I remember correctly Burning Thistle leaves also made tea. When one reads Early American midwives, they also knew Herbal Medicine. Like the interesting notes.

So thistle is Scotland’s national flower. I did not know that. I can remember when I was young, my mother picked a thistle bloom and put it in a vase on the kitchen table. My dad, a Kentucky tobacco farmer, came back to the house and had a conniption fit. He had fought thistles in the fields all his life and couldn’t believe mom had brought one in the house. Years later, dad is 93 and retired. He occasionally buys thistle seed for his bird feeders. I’ve never mentioned the scene he made that day, but chuckle about it to myself. I share this story because the only bizarre tourist attraction I can think of is an outhouse in an anonymous state park. It had been vandalized prior to my visit. I desperately needed the visit but quickly decided I was not that desperate!

Hahaha! Your outhouse story made me laugh. I was telling someone just last night that whenever anybody mentions they’re from Ohio, my first comment is always, “Ohio has the best rest area bathrooms of every state I’ve ever been in!” I have more bathroom stories than is probably polite to admit in mixed company. The story about your dad and the thistle made me chuckle, too. When my kids were little, I used to send them out into the yard to collect the “pretty yellow flowers” so we could put them in a vase on the table. That was my way of trying to get all the dandelions yanked before they went to seed and spread. The kids would go pull the flowers, and then when they weren’t looking, I’d go treat the bases with weed killer. My husband would get home from work, look at the pretty yellow flowers on display on our dinner table, raise his eyebrow, and shake his head. It’s not the same as thistle, but one person’s weed is another person’s flower! ^_^

While not unusual we had fun with my mother visiting the beginning of the Appalachian trail head in Georgia, shortly before she passed away. She was worried about my youngest ,Becky, at age 5 keeping up with us. Becky ran up the steep trail and then led us back down and then played in the playground near the parking lot. The rest of us watched her play while I asked my mom why she was worried about Becky keeping up.

Ha! Love it! When my son was a preschooler, I’d go walking at the mall with a friend. He was always bored with our adult conversation, so I’d look ahead and pick out a sign of a store he would recognize, and I’d tell him he could run. That boy would run ahead to that store sign (all within my sight), then run back to us, then run back to that store, then run back to us, etc., until we got to that store. Then I’d pick out a sign for another store ahead, and we’d repeat. My friend and I would end up walking two miles in the mall, and my son would have run closer to eight miles. And I always ended up more tired than him, too! ^_^

Heather,
I’m reading your book right now and I love it! I’ve not been able to read much because I have an editing client, but when I can I LOVE IT! My husband and I used to do wedding photography, so it’s fun to relate to the book.
As for the strangest place we have visited, well it would be in Arizona. Please save your money unless you’re really wanting to see this. It’s so strange!! It’s called the Mystery Castle. It was made out of WIERD stuff all by one man. Look it up it’s STRANGE!

Thistles are scary, but the color of the bloom is my favorite color. It used to be a crayola color and mine was always broken. Does an outhouse count? There’s a historical plantation in Arkansas close to where I live. It has an old school house and several buildings including an outhouse. I had a book signing at a festival there once and they put me by the outhouse. I got a lot of traffic and sold a lot of books because so many people had never seen a real live outhouse.

I’ve been to a couple of different wax museums. One was underground in a cavern where it stayed cool year-round. Another was Madame Tussaud’s in Washington, DC. That one was definitely well-done. People were stopping and taking pictures with different wax sculptures because they looked so lifelike. It’s a little funny to me that wax sculptures ever became a thing. I’ll bet Niagra Falls was gorgeous, though! ^_^

The Invisible Exhibition – that sounds fascinating! As for the thistle – I’ve read several different articles now, and it seems like none of them actually agree on how thistle became the national flower. Is there some sort of official account about it somewhere? (I still think they should have picked heather. But then, I’m completely biased.) ^_^

Hahahaha! You made me chuckle. Good job! ^_^ I lived in the Reno area for part of my childhood, and we would often go to San Francisco when we had a three-day weekend or something like that. I’ve been across the Golden Gate Bridge a few times. Every single time was captivating. The bridge is impressive in photos, but seeing it up close and personal is something else altogether. Of course, I was also a child, so everything seemed so much bigger to me. Crossing the bridge may have been my favorite part of those weekends!

I haven’t travelled that much, so I haven’t seen that much. I guess as I was only 5 the dinosaur in the museum in Pittsburg. Can;t remember the museum’s name. Scared the stuffings out of me. I didn’t take into consideration how big it would be and to a 5 year old it was pretty big. It wasn’t a TRex but I think a brontosaurus. Anyway, I had loved dinos until that time.

We used to go visit the Museum of the Rockies whenever we were in Bozeman, Montana. Montana is apparently a hot spot for dinosaur bones, and this museum came about as a result of that. When we visited, it was *the* dinosaur museum. Then it added a planetarium. Then it added some displays about the history of people in Montana. It keeps growing and growing and now has several different facilities and displays, but in mind, it’s always going to be the dinosaur museum. It was always super fascinating to me…but then, I was in my twenties the first time I visited. ^_^

We have some unusual tourist attractions in Australia – The Big Banana, The Big Pineapple (although this one has now closed, but the structure is still there), The Big Merino – you can actually go inside it and look at the view through the rams eyes!http://www.bigmerino.com.au/http://www.bigbanana.com/http://www.bigpineapple.com.au/
I’ve seen all three, but the only one I’ve actually been inside is the Big Pineapple.

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